Granny von Karma
by Lythdan
Summary: Manfred's mother comes with Franziska from Germany to LA during State vs. Edgeworth. After all, Christmas is a time for family.


**A/N: On the kink meme, someone described Manfred's mother as a sweet yet batty and senile old lady. This fic ensued. **

**Granny von Karma**

At ninety years of age, Granny von Karma should have been resting at her luxurious estate in Germany, reading sappy literature and lamenting about the days gone by. Instead, she was in a Los Angeles courthouse, fiddling with her son's cravat as her bemused granddaughter looked on. After all, Christmas had just passed and she loved spending time with her family.

"Manfred, dear, I don't understand why you insist on the wearing of all these frills." Her son had become such a handsome young man, but all these fancy suits he was accustomed to wearing were very unbecoming. How would he ever attract another beautiful wife if he didn't show off his shapely shoulders? All the other lawyers filing into the courthouse had much nicer taste in clothing.

"Look over there, Manfred," Granny chirped, pointing at an individual dressed in a blue suit and a pink tie, "there's a man who knows how to dress!"

Manfred didn't say anything at first, but then he looked up. "That is Phoenix Wright," he said shortly. "He is the defense attorney for this case."

"He's such a heartthrob! Oh, Manfred, why couldn't you have been more like _him_?" Manfred tensed.

Luckily, Franziska, who had been growing weary of this utter foolishness, interrupted. "Phoenix Wright is a defense attorney. Therefore, he is a fool."

Granny let go of Manfred's cravat then, and the recess was declared over. Manfred took it as a chance to sneak back to the courtroom to finish his case. Granny then turned her attentions to Franziska, her rowdy granddaughter. "Now, now, Franziska. You're just like your Papa, you know. All these frilly dresses and puffy sleeves. I see girls your age walking around half naked these days with tops showing their bellies and skirts so short—"

"Granny," Franziska interrupted, "it's the middle of winter."

Granny's eyes brightened. "So it is, my dear Franzi, so it is. How could have I forgotten? Dear, oh dear." She started to ruffle through the basket dangling off her arm. "I baked cookies of the entire family for Christmas!"

"My name," Franziska hissed, her fingers tightening around the handle of her whip, "is Franzi_ska_."

Granny took no heed of this as she started pulling the cookies out. To be more accurate, they were gingerbread men. She showed Franziska the first one. "This one here, Franzi, is your Papa."

Franziska took the cookie from her granny. It did indeed look just like her Papa, from the fancy expensive suit right down to the scowl on his face. Was she supposed to eat this?

"This is you, Franzi," Granny said, pulling out a second gingerbread man, although Franziska mused it was probably a gingerbread woman. If it had not been for the cookie person's bright blue hair, she was not sure if she would have recognised herself. Her Granny didn't seem as familiar with her clothes as she was with her Papa's.

"And this is your brother, Miles." The last gingerbread man did not have its arms out to the side in the traditional manner. Instead, the little Miles had its arms crossed over his chest, face set in a forlorn expression with his hair covering his eyes.

Gingerbread man Miles look so utterly despondent that Franziska thought it would be best to put him out its misery. Tenderly, she ripped his head off and chewed it. Her brother tasted sort of gooey. Franziska would have to give her granny her perfect recipe that made any cookies taste absolutely delectable.

"Franziska!" Granny shouted, and Franziska swallowed the last of Miles's head, wondering what she had done now. "Go apologise to your brother _right now_. That was very mean of you, ripping his head off in such a manner."

Franziska knew that her granny wasn't quite the same as she used to be when they had both been younger, but with every passing day, she swore that Granny was becoming more and more senile. "I can't."

"Oh, yes you can," Granny said sternly, glaring at Franziska over the top of her spectacles. Granny was as scary as Papa sometimes.

Franziska's hands suddenly felt empty, as though they were missing something they usually held onto. Her whip…where was her whip?

_Crack_. The whip lashed out at a point on the floor barely a foot away from Franziska. Franziska looked at her granny and did a double take. Her grandmother...how had Granny taken hold of her whip?

With a sudden empty feeling in her stomach, Franziska remembered it was her grandmother who had taught her how to wield a whip. In fact, Franziska had inherited her whip from Granny. Doing something she never usually did—backing away slowly—she argued, "Miles Edgeworth is on trial for _murder_ right now; it's the last day—"

"Franziska." _Crack_. "You apologise to your brother. Now!"

She could not resist a direct order from Granny, even if she did seem somewhat out of the loop and did not understand that Franziska could not go interrupt the proceedings of a murder trial to make a childish apology. After all, Granny was armed with a whip, and Franziska had discovered from personal experience that people tended to follow the orders of whoever was holding the whip.

She would have to run at the doors, she decided, to achieve enough momentum to enter the courtroom before the bailiffs jumped on her.

Her planning had been perfect as always. The bailiffs had not expected the blue-haired teenager to come charging in, and were powerless to stop her before the doors swung open and Franziska was running to defendant's chair, where Miles was sitting.

Papa seemed to be in the process of saying something important. "I claim that the bullet in my shoulder has no relation to—_Franziska!?_"

She had been brought up to believe that nothing was more important than the sanctity of the courtroom. Now, she was betraying everything she had ever believed in for Granny's sake. "Miles Edgeworth," she said dangerously as she stomped up to the defendant's chair. "I apologise for decapitating you!"

Her statement caused an uproar in the court. The judge banged his gavel futilely, while murmuring to himself, "Mr. Edgeworth looks fine to me…"

Phoenix Wright, defense attorney, fainted.

The court bailiffs caught up with Franziska.

Through it all, Granny stood by the courtroom's door with a proud smile on her face. "See, Franzi?" she heard Granny yell over all the commotion as the bailiffs handcuffed Franziska's wrists together, "That wasn't too hard, was it?"

After three hours in the detention centre, and after ascertaining that she hadn't _really_ decapitated anyone, Franziska was released after her Papa paid the large bail amount. "It is unfortunate," she heard her father say to someone, "but we were unable to attain a continuance for the trail, as the statute of limitations ran out today."

Franziska rounded the corner then, and saw her sweet old grandmother and her Papa, who had the nastiest scowl Franziska had seen in a long time plastered across his face. "I saw your 'courtroom' that you love so much today, Manfred," Granny said with a sniff. "Uneducated hoons pointing and yelling at each other. You should have become a doctor instead. Now, there is a profession a mother could be proud of!"

Franziska could not help it. She brought a gloved hand to her mouth and tried her best to stifle her laughter.

"Anyway, where is my grandson? I want to see how he's feeling after that awfully harsh trial, and to give him his cookies." She rummaged through her basket again and returned with not one, not two, but fifteen gingerbread women with the blue hair and badly decorated clothes.

Franziska gaped.

"Ah," Manfred said, "the boy is not speaking to me at the moment."

"Tosh," Granny said. "I'll talk some sense into him. Christmas is a time for family, after all."

"You don't understand, Mother—"

_Crack_.

Franziska startled at the noise, and was even more startled to see her father, usually so strong and emotionless, cowering away from Granny. It was then Franziska realised she had not yet gotten her whip back.

Granny von Karma really _was_ scary with a whip.


End file.
